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With Cindy Martin
Transgender Forum Publisher
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March 30, 1998
 on't do us any favors, puhleeze.
Last week, the group of clowns who sit on the San Francisco Unified School District board made national fools of themselves by seriously considering a racial quota system for the authors on a required reading list for high school kids. What they really need to do is come up with serious homework and study quota system, but that's another rant. Anyway, in the all this brouhaha one of the board members insisted that if there going to be a color quota then there also must be a quota for "gay, lesbian and transgender" authors.
Now before I go on, let me emphasize that there is no question that we have some incredible authors in our community. Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein spring to mind immediately. But much as I like their work, I hardly think I'd trade my children's opportunities to read Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or Charlotte Bronte or Emily Dickinson for the chance to read Transgender Warriors.
As you can imagine, some of the local press had a great time with the transgender quota. Right wing talk radio totally enjoyed the whole fiasco, and used us as the foil for their outrage. But what was worse than all that was that no one of any stature in the local TG community ever asked for such a quota. This silly woman, who is NOT transgender, just decided on her own to make us a part of her preference system.
I guess she did this so she would appear sensitive and hip. But what she ended up doing in her knee-jerk, unthinking way, was to link transgenders and quotas together in the public mind. With friends like this...
You undoubtedly know by now that there are a number of places in the U.S. that have so-called "transgender rights" laws or ordinances. Not one of these laws entitles us to any "special" job quotas or any other guarantees. That isn't an accident. We haven't ever asked for hiring preferences or quotas. Yes, we do want protection against capricious job dismissals, but we haven't demanded that people hire us or admit us to a great college because we're TG.
But that isn't what many in the public think. I remember when the San Francisco law was being debated and the many letters to newspapers complaining that it was just a "drag queen job creation act" or "a way for white guys to get affirmative action" and so on. The local anti-bias law itself is actually very mild, and has no enforcement provisions, and it was written that way (and approved by the TG community leadership) because of public antipathy to the creation of another "protected" class of people.
Fortunately for all of us, the author quota idea died rather quietly after a long school board meeting last week. After the activists without kids in the schools went home, the board decided that, gee, maybe this isn't such a great idea and shelved the quota for a "suggested" reading list. One of the reasons they backed off was that many minority authors, plus the schools superintendent, who is Latino, came out publicly against this dumb idea.
Now, comes the real challenge: getting the kids to actually READ Amy Tan and Toni Morrison...
allas Denny's departure from AEGIS is a big deal on a lot of levels, not the least of which is the community's loss of a dedicated leader. But what amazes me is that she lasted so long in what was, essentially, an unpaid, full-time job. And she's only the latest in a string of leaders who've called it quits, basically for the same reasons.
People like Dallas and Phyllis Fry, who quit as leader of the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy in late 1997 aren't just volunteers putting in a couple of hours a month. Many of us do that, no big thing. It's actually fun. No, these folks, and a few others, are basically performing full-time work for nothing more than an occasional plaque or bouquet of roses at a TG convention.
No one can do that forever.
Actually, for all the criticism heaped on IFGE, one of the things they do right is to PAY their executive director. Let's hope that "It's Time, America," which is the hottest national political group in the nation right now, does the same thing as it gets more organized and effective.
If ITA and AEGIS merge, which seems a real possibility, our community could have a very potent new force working for us. ITA is a grassroots organizing group and has been very effective in changing laws in several states, including Illinois. I like their basic philosophy of acting locally to change laws. It has become clear to me that victories at the local level will force changes at the national level, not the other way around. I wish it were not so, but the chances of the U.S. Congress publicly supporting anti-bias laws for transgenders are remote at best.
On the other hand, quality local organizing can definitely benefit from national leadership. One great model that ITA-AEGIS could follow is that of the Sierra Club, perhaps the most effective grassroots environmental group in the U.S.
Virtually all Sierra Club member are volunteers and, like ITA, the local chapters have the power to chart their strategies for the particular issue in their area. However, the Sierra Club, DOES have a paid executive director and his job is to make sure that basic tenets or the organization are followed, as well as overseeing the collection of the dues that keep the group running and many other key activities.
You may not like the Sierra Club's politics, but it's hard to deny that they have been effective in many locales, particularly when it comes to fighting development on senitive lands.
ITA really ought to consider that group's model as it makes the next step
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